Curator of Greek and Roman art at the Getty Museum, 1973-1985; fired for impropriety. Frel's father was an elementary school teacher in a Czechoslovakian village. The family changed the name to Frel from one of Jewish origin to escape Nazi persecution during their occupation. After World War II, Frel studied at the Sorbonne école normale supérieure in Paris. He returned to Czechoslovakia where he taught classical art at Charles University (Universitas Carolina) from 1948 to 1968. During the 1968 Czech revolt, he defected from Czechoslovakia, then under communist rule, to the United States.